


Turning Away

by PhoenixDragon



Category: Angel - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-20
Updated: 2006-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:10:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDragon/pseuds/PhoenixDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he was standing right where Angel thought he would be - top floor, overlooking the carnage a few miles to his left. It would take awhile, but the city would heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Away

  
He knew that he would be waiting.

It was a place they had both agreed on, that they had picked as the one place they could meet after the earthquakes were finally over - after the battle had been won, and they had come out the conquering heroes. And to his great surprise, they actually _had_ won - a feat so impossible, so monumental, he was quite sure it would take a few hours to catch up with him.

After all, when you challenge a Dragon, a _God_ , and you win...

Let's just say the high-fiving could wait until his knees stopped knocking together. When his mind could handle the concept, _then_ he could celebrate - but now, there was Wesley -

And he was standing right where Angel thought he would be - top floor, overlooking the carnage a few miles to his left. It would take awhile, but the city would heal. Already, they were forgetting. It was a luxury - one that they themselves, could not afford, but one that mankind was awarded for free, just by looking the other way.

" I see you made it," Wes called softly, head turning just a fraction, though his eyes never left the rubble once known as L.A.

"Glad to know that you made it in one piece. Illyria, Spike - Gunn?"

"Spike and Illyria are fine - last I heard, they were whooping it up in one of the bars that came through unscathed. That is, Spike was whooping, Illyria was being...Illyria."

He shrugged at his inability to convey the proper words, but recieved a nod of understanding from Wesley. There really was no other description for the tiny, blue ex-God. Illyria was just - herself.

"And Gunn."

Wesley seemed to hold his breath - like he already knew the answer, and though it was a painful wound, he had to dig that much deeper to get to the bullet underneath.

" Wes, I - " He could feel it too. The pain of failure - the sour taste of defeat lying low in his throat - a taste that even victory could not quite disguise.

"I'm so sorry..." He finished lamely, his inadequecies coming up to choke his tongue once again. This was suppose to be a night of joy and exhiliration. So why did he feel so low? Gunn died the way he wanted to - fighting the good fight - what more could any of them ask for.

" I know, Angel. I'll miss him too." Wes said, aiming at the heart of the matter and laying it open like a smooth pink throat, forcing him to swallow his own grief that he had not realized he was carrying. " He was a good man. A good...friend."

Angel knew too well the problems that Wes and Gunn had survived - and yet, somehow, the capacity to forgive all the wrongs bestowed upon him by his so-called 'friends' amazed Angel to no end.

" I loved him, too, Angel. The past is past, and I was looking forward to making new memories for the future." A slight shrug and a downward turn of his mouth as Wesley breathed through his nose, trying to pull himself back together - him and that damned iron composure, so carefully and skillfully developed to hide the big heart inside. Angel didn't envy him that - but he was grateful for it.

How else could Wes have found it in his heart to forgive him, and accept him, when Angel confessed, not only all of his sins - but that of his heart's desire. To have Wesley as his own.

His hatred, his anger for all these years was fueled by this very emotion, driving him to deeper and deeper depths of torment that his soul should not have allowed him to inflict on another.

But such is the way of the _human_ heart - and the Powers did not see fit to deny him that pain, nor to stop him from wielding it as a weapon against the one he loved the most. After all that time, all those struggles with who he was and who he should be, he found that love - in Welsey Wyndam-Pryce. And to his great surprise and blackest shame - he found that love returned in kind.

Which was why the talk before the final battle, the picking of a location to meet - even though Angel did not truly believe that any of them would survive.

Yet, here they were.

Vail? He knew Vail would be a cakewalk.

Himself? He should have been dusted when the Dragon covered him in flames from head to foot - that would have made sense, it would have been fitting.

If the fire was of the actual _fire_ kind and not the ice variety.

Ooops.

And so - here they were.

Finally, finally - he would be able to give more than a hasty kiss before shoving Wesley out the door to face the doom that was Vail. That kiss, so sweet, and so warm, was all that they had been able to share before the problems with the Black Thorn spiraled out of control, taking Angel's WolfRam&Hart division with it, sucking them all into a maelstrom of deceit and death.

They both took a pause, a moment out of time to mourn Charles and what he should have gone on to achieve - to weep inside over the friend that was, as he had gone down doing what he loved most in the world -

' _Delivering us from evil._ '

Angel shivered as a cold wind swept out of nowhere to cut him like a blade - then just as quickly it was gone, a faded whiff of memory borne on the smoky breeze that was redemption formed in the ashes ten stories below their feet.

" So Vail?-"

"Dead..." Wesley said tonelessly. "Back into the hell from whence he emerged."

He turned to look at Angel then, tilting his head slightly and catching his glasses on his forefinger before they could slide off of his nose.

" So Illyria didn't tell you..."

" No." He remembered Illyria showing up in their midst, a fiery Goddess of wrath, bent on destroying all that, presumably, had refused to bow before her magnificent Will. They didn't count - but the Others... The ones that walked the Earth before - that they should _dare_ -

He chuckled, which earned him a sharp look from Wes.

"Sorry," He gulped, resisting the urge to fall to his knees and bray half-hysterical laughter to the half moon above. " It's just she... She breezed in, all hellfire and brimstone, and her first words were - "

He sucked in a bit more air that he didn't need and palmed tears of laughter out of his eyes.

" Her first words were - 'Which one is mine?'."

Wes chuckled with him, chuckles that turned to soft laughter, then wild guffaws that bordered on insane shrieks. They laughed until their sides ached and gasping wheezes were all they could manage.

" So. The Dragon..." Wesley said when he had caught his breath, his smile a beacon of light in the shadows.

Angel, drawn to that smile, echoed it with one of his own a he drew closer, the urge to touch, to to rumple Wesley's hair, or straighten his skewed glasses, checked only by his knowledge that they had to talk first - then Wes would let him touch to his heart's content. This thought made his joy soar, and he managed to contain his itching fingers to himself. Soon, he would be able to touch, to kiss and to laugh with Wesley - as free as free could be - the fight was over. There was more to come, sure, but for now...

"Ahem." Wes prodded, eyes twinkling in the dim light, as though reading Angel's mind. For all Angel knew - he was, so with a mild blush he forced himself to focus on the now and save the later for...later.

" The Dragon? She wanted him, but I saw him first." Angel declared, grin still fixed firmly to his face. " She pouted a bit, but I told her - 'Finders Keepers' and since that is one rule she _does_ understand -"

"Angel..." Wes chided.

" Oh! The _Dragon_." Angel teased. " Piece of cake."

"I'm sure." A raised eyebrow and an answering grin. " though I can bet that Illyria was not best pleased that she arrived to the party late - I'm sure she wanted to have a go at the beast herself."

"She got one." Angel protested. "Actually, we all did - beasts, monsters, pixies-"

"Pixies?!"

"Don't knock 'em - they're tough little bastards."

They stood for a few more minutes, gazing over the city,listening to the distant warble of sirens, the mass quiet of a city that was slowly coming back to life from the deep sleep it had forced itself into.

" So was Vail." Wes murmured, seeming sad for a moment, before brightening, turning to face Angel at last, whole body vibrating with an almost welcoming light. " But no matter now - I'm glad you came."

Shyly.

"We agreed, Wes. This was the place and here we are..."

Again that cold wind. Angel pulled his jacket tighter around his neck, a habit that had not been dropped even with his death being five times as long as his life. Some things just never change.

" And look." He said, voice dropping to a caressing whisper. " You were right here waiting for me."

Wes turned away to look at the city again, stopping Angel from touching him - his hand hovering in the air right above Wesley's elbow.

"Wes?" Puzzled. Had he done something wrong?

" No, Angel. You've done nothing wrong." A soft laugh. " No. I'm the one who fucked up..."

Angel's hairs rose on the back of his neck, that chill wind wrapping itself like a cloak around him, as alarm bells chimed and screamed in his mind - telling him something was wrong, wrong, wrong.

" Wesley." No more than a croak this time - and still the man would not face him.

" I'm surprised Illyria never said anything," The Englishman murmured, voice hollow and hard to grasp, like snatches of music from afar. " I thought she would have-"

He turned and reached out a hand to Angel, fingers hovering just barely over the vampire's cheek, almost a touch, but not quite. Enough for Angel to feel the cool pressure from the close proximity, but without any actual contact.

' _Wesley?!_ ' He screamed it, but the scream never made it to his lips, as he realized, as he suddenly _knew_.

Wesley nodded, eyes sad and full of understanding warmth.

"I'm sorry, Angel... Believe me - if I had known that my arrogance - "

" No, no, no." Angel gasped, horror taking hold of his mind as a desperate wrenching sorrow filled his heart. " _I_ sent you in, I thought... I thought - "

He had no idea _what_ he thought. He couldn't _think_ \- what had happened? What had gone so horribly wrong?

"Ahh, Angel." Wes smiled, eyes shimmering slightly, full of twinkling sympathy and undying hope. " It wasn't you, it wasn't me. It was just a price to be paid for winning the game. If you hadn't sent me, I would have gone anyway. And the outcome would be more or less the same - but I would not have been meeting you here."

" But, you." Angel blinked, eyes wild, unseeing anything but the mad images that spilled though his mind, of Wesley fighting, of Wesley dying - it was too much,just too much to bear. " You _are_ here. You...you..."

Wesley shook his head, stepping back slightly - and now Angel couldn't miss it - the blood soaking red and thickly wet through his sweater, his face so pale in the dim smoke that was the Los Angeles skyline.

" No, Angel - fate came calling, and I answered. Don't be..." He trailed off, and the chill of his fingers ghosted across Angel's cheek, the touch a promise and an apology all in one.

Angel broke down then, weeping at the simplest of words exchanged within the silence.

" No, Wes! Don't. Don't..."

" Shhhh, my love." Wesley sighed, his last kiss to Angel bestowed on the bowed head in a whisper of fire and joy.

" When the time comes again.

 _I'll be right here...waiting for you._ "

 **_Finis._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Don't believe that no one cares, because we're right here waiting for you baby."  
> Disclaimer: I don't own them - Mutant Enemy, Greenwalt and Joss Whedon does... Which is a shame, cause I seem to have more fun with them!


End file.
